During the initial instalation of XenDesktop, an Active Directory Controllers group is created and populated with the DDC servers in the farm. This group is named ‘controllers’.

For any subsequent installation of XenDesktop a new controllers group is added for each XenDesktop installation with a different name based on controllers – such as ‘ControlA0D3’

If there will be multiple XenDesktop instances in the same Active Directory it may be best to use a controllers group that reflects the business unit, project name or farm name to destinquish it from the others.

The process to do this is detailed in the following Citrix Article: CTX120451

However, the following points are worth noting when following this article.

Create a new group in the same OU as the original ‘controllers’ group called: <farm_name>_Controllers

NOTE: you need the GUID as displayed here. If you open the entry by double clicking to copy/paste the value this mirrors some sections of the GUID as detailed in the Citrix article mentioned above.

When entering the GUID into the registry key it needs to be in the format: xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx

Restart all DDC servers

Run the AD Configuration wizard again from one DDC and it will now use the GUID entered in the regkey as the controllers group rather than the default. It appears to also update the SCP information with the details of the new group.

This registry key does not need to be applied to the virtual desktops as they get information about the controllers groups from the AD SCP configuration, which has just been updated from the AD config wizard.

Restarting the virtual desktops (VDA agents) now gives a sucessful registration with the farm.

Note: don’t forget to also update the settings for ‘Access this device over the network’ to include the new controllers group if this applies in your configuration.